Then how do I prevent the same thing happening again?
–
PeterAug 8 '11 at 20:02

1

Out of interest, what is the name of the account? Normally you'd only see that behavior when creating an account with a name that already exists.
–
WindosAug 8 '11 at 20:20

There is only one user account: USERNAME. However there are two folders in C:\Users: USERNAME and USERNAME.MACHINENAME. The USERNAME account points to the USERNAME.MACHINENAME folder. Not sure how this came about, it was unintentional.
–
PeterAug 8 '11 at 20:29

Also, I've installed a bunch of s/w already, so I'm hoping I can do this without deleting the account.
–
PeterAug 8 '11 at 20:34

Double-Click "Local Users and Groups", then "Users." If you account is still listed, delete it.

Open the registry editor. Win+r and type regedit and hit enter.

Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\ProfileList. There shouldn't be any reminants of the profile left now, but if you notice an entry for it in the profile list, delete it.

Finally, navigate to C:\Users and make sure those two folders and both gone.

Restart for good measure, then create the account again.

If you REALLY want to hack at it you can try this (I don't guarantee that this will defiantly work):

Open the Local Users and Groups area of the Management Console as described above.

Double click the account and go to the Profile tab.

Enter the profile path and home folder (local path) as "C:\Users\USERNAME\"

Copy the contents of "C:\Users\USERNAME.COMPUTERNAME\" and delete "C:\Users\USERNAME\"

Recreate the folder "C:\Users\USERNAME\" and paste the contents of "C:\Users\USERNAME.COMPUTERNAME\" into it.

I see this all the time when people join their PCs to a domain, or join them off a domain. I'll also see this on upgraded installations.

If you REALLY want to hack at it you can try this (I don't guarantee that this will defiantly work):

Open the Local Users and Groups area of the Management Console as described above.
Double click the account and go to the Profile tab.
Enter the profile path and home folder (local path) as "C:\Users\USERNAME\"
Copy the contents of "C:\Users\USERNAME.COMPUTERNAME\" and delete "C:\Users\USERNAME\"
Recreate the folder "C:\Users\USERNAME\" and paste the contents of "C:\Users\USERNAME.COMPUTERNAME\" >into it.
Delete "C:\Users\USERNAME.COMPUTERNAME\"
Restart and pray.

Pray?

Sigh. Microsoft takes all that time to create a tool called Windows Easy Transfer, which has existed since XP, but people, for some reason, choose to do things the hard way. De-evolution ftl.